Somewhere on the outskirts of reason... Or where good television can be found.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Various Artists 'Various Sh*t Volume 7'

If you’re checking back and looking for an update… Well you’re in luck.

Welcome to my update!

I’m glad that you haven’t written me off and have decided to check in on me.

It’s true that I haven’t really had anything exciting to write about in the last few months since joining the large ranks of the unemployed, but I do my best to find the weirder moments in life to share with you. Truth is… If you’re not out and about every day, you tend to miss those odd moments.

Sean Whitley and I played a large game about 6 years ago after I lost a full-time job and a fiancée. We did this with a 4’x 8’ piece of particle board, ten Battletech maps, and my bottle of Smirnoff Vanilla Vodka. We unloaded almost every mech we had in our arsenal for our geeky endeavor. There had to be about 200 mechs in play and it took about 3 months to finish the game. We started the game at 10 in the morning and played until midnight on the first day. That’s when I finally started to feel the effects of the Smirnoff and passed out on Sean’s couch.

Over the 3 month period, Sean triumphed easily over me and my bad rolls. I say that because my tactics are sound, but when the fire rounds and piloting rolls are determined by a pair of dice I get mainly low (bad) rolls. That means I have difficulty in hitting the targets and my mechs fall because of the low rolls. Falling mechs sustain damage and are left prone for the enemy to come in like the LAPD to pound them without mercy.

The new game started last Friday night and I had a limited amount of days to get my mechs painted and ready for game play. So that’s why I didn’t take the time for an update last week. I was too busy gluing, priming, and painting my mechs.

Sean and I headed up the two teams. Sean had his sister Mandy and I had Jonathan along with Mandy’s boyfriend Justin.

We started about 7pm and got in 4 rounds before we called it a night at 2:30 Saturday morning.

We didn’t take a head count on the mechs, but we estimate just over 300 of them are on the table. So this game could take months to play without taking Sean’s retail schedule (Christmas time’s a comin’) into consideration.

I got my digital camera out for this and here are the pictures we took. The first one is from my team’s side of the table. We have all of our mechs lined up and ready for action while Mandy (pictured on the left) decided her placement.

The next picture is after 2 rounds of play and as you can see, we’ve all started to meet in the middle to exchange fire, punches, and kicks (all determined by dice rolls). At this point, the faster mechs have met in the center and the jump capable mechs on our side have started to find the high ground surrounded by a moat.

This picture is after the third round from Sean’s end of the table. Sean and Mandy have left the high ground to join in the melee in the center.

Here’s another shot from Sean’s end of the table. If you look close enough at the top, you can see me giving Jonathan (who took that picture) a message.

This picture shows a “kill”. My Raven mech was slaughtered and the blue poker chip represents the rubble left behind. If you go over the rubble, you will have to make a piloting roll to remain upright and on your feet. To the left of that poker chip, you can see my Fireball (yellow mech) standing in a large stream between the two lakes. I blew the piloting roll to get out of the stream and fell. It was quickly blown up while my Dart (the red mech lying down next to it) fell trying to get through the stream.

I’m telling ya… I have no luck when it comes to navigating waterways… I seem to blow it almost every time. I had to roll a 5 or better on two six-siders and managed to screw the pooch with 2 out of 3 mechs crossing the water. Much laughter follows every time one of my mechs fall in the water.

This last picture shows a mech’s eye view of the playing field.

We may get in another round tomorrow and/or Wednesday, but most definitely we’re going for it on Friday night again.

So there you have it. The reason I was so quiet updating last week. I will continue to take some pictures to share with you, but I won’t bore you with the details. Chances are good that our team will lose because Sean took the lowest battle point values for each mech. Loosely translated: He will have many more than we will and he should crush us.

4 comments:

Mystery solved! So that's what was going on over there! I passed by the Whitley Estates at about midnight Saturday and noticed that there were a ton of cars over there and the place seemed pretty well lit up. I turned to Ma like, "Man, What's happening over there?!" but, instead of stopping (figuring it was kind of late for a random pop-in, even if it was evident that something was going on), we continued on our way home. Of course I know nothing of this Battletech (only that once, a long time ago, you actually won one. Or at least that's what I hear), but man, that's a lot of stuff on the table!